Update: Lawmakers Look at Budget Process in Special Committee Hearing
Alice Fitzgerald | October 11, 2024
On October 2, the Special Committee on Budget Process and Development met for the second time to review the current budget process in Kansas and discuss possible changes.
(To view the summary of the first meeting of the Special Committee on Budget Process and Development, click here.)
At the start of the meeting, legislative staff answered questions asked in the August meeting, including general information about the formation and purpose of the State Finance Council, the Legislative Coordinating Council, and policies of the Kansas Open Records Act.
In contrast to the last meeting this committee held, this meeting was open to testimony. Three organizations — the Kansas Policy Institute (KPI), Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) — provided public comment.
KPI and AFP provided recommendations on strategies that would drastically reduce state spending and the amount of money the state could draw down from the federal government. While we agree that lawmakers should be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, putting in place arbitrary rules about how the state budget operates would create an inflexible government that cannot properly respond to the unique needs of Kansans.
As we saw after drastic budget cuts about a decade ago, when the state budget shrinks, lower- and middle-income Kansans are those most likely to be hit the hardest.
One state budget practice, however, was agreed upon by all three conferees: the K-12 budget should remain in the main budget bill and not as a separate piece of legislation as has become the norm since 2017. However, it appears that a carved-out K-12 budget from the main budget bill will still be the continued practice.
After the testimony portion of the meeting concluded, committee members discussed the possibility of creating a legislative-driven budget process before the 2025 session begins. Currently, lawmakers receive the Governor’s Budget Recommendation within the first week of session, which sets a foundation for legislative budget meetings and recommendations. Instead, legislative leadership wants to create their own budget bill ahead of the legislative session and only use the Governor’s budget as needed. If this new process were to be implemented, we can expect two unique budgets with likely very different priorities apparent.
By the end of the meeting, the Committee made the following recommendations:
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The Legislature should form 2024 Special Committee on Legislative Budget, which would meet in November and December to review agency budgets as submitted to the Governor’s Office through KLRD.
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The 2024 Special Committee on Legislative Budget should work to create a budget bill that would be introduced on the first day of legislative session, which is slated for January 13, 2025.
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The chairs of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means and House Committee on Appropriations should request attendance at any agency budget appeals hearings.
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All provisos should go through the normal budget process and be heard by all members of the Senate Ways and Means and the House Appropriations committees.
The Committee also heavily leaned toward enforcing a 2% budget growth cap, apart from caseloads adjustments and the K-12 budget. This would be a self-imposed limit for the legislative-created version of the budget.
Throughout the meeting, several legislators emphasized the importance of public input in this process, especially due to the changes in the budget timeline. It is difficult to imagine how transparency and inclusion will be possible with such a rushed implementation during the busy few months left before the 2025 legislative session.
What Happens Now?
The Legislature is moving forward with several of the above recommendations, including the decision to have 2024 Special Committee on Legislative Budget meetings to focus on creating its own budget starting in November. To officially move forward, additional meetings must be approved by the Legislative Coordinating Council at their October 23 meeting.
While the makeup of the 2024 Special Committee on Legislative Budget has yet to be decided, rushing the process and other unknown variables concern us. Advocates' ability to share their thoughts about the budget process could be impacted, and we question the reduction of transparency.
We also question if this will cut out lawmaker voices representing various areas of the state, add confusing new layer of inefficient bureaucracy, reduce and ignore agency expertise, disregard incorporating updated revenue estimates, and what, exactly, would be accomplished by the new process that cannot already be done during session.
We will keep a close eye on these interim budget meetings and see if there are any opportunities for advocates to share their priorities with lawmakers, as well as to gain insight into how this may drive budget discussions during the 2025 session.
Legislative Coordinating Council Update
On October 23, the Legislative Coordinating Council met and discussed the creation of the 2024 Special Committee on Legislative Budget. This committee, made up of eight House Republicans, eight Senate Republicans, four House Democrats, and three Senate Democrats, will meet for just five days to create a budget before the legislative session.
They will use the previous year’s budget and agency budget requests as a base to build their budget proposal. Notably, the Committee will not meet until after the election. Lawmakers assigned to the committee can be found on the committee’s webpage here.
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